Jacqueline Hart

Jacqueline Hart is the Vice President for Strategic Learning, Research and Evaluation at AJWS. Drawing on years of experience in national and international program and policy development and implementation, Jacqueline is responsible for leading AJWS’s efforts to measure its impact on realizing human rights and ending poverty in the developing world.

If you want to improve something, the challenge first needs to be visible—and, unfortunately, some of the challenges facing women in developing countries are invisible. Why? They haven’t been clearly investigated by researchers and tracked with data. We know that we do what we measure. In other words, if we don’t measure the right things, …Read More

We all know that adolescence is, by definition, a time when children begin to mature into adults: physically, mentally and emotionally. In many communities, it’s also a time fraught with anxiety about the emerging sexuality of adolescent girls—a time when, driven by fear, some families exert tight control over where girls can go, who they can talk to, and how they dress. Because the roles of women and girls remain restricted in patriarchal societies across the world, families often marry off daughters at this age, believing their honor hinges on keeping girls virgins until marriage. In addition, families often pay lower dowries if they marry their daughters at younger ages.